Hopeless? ~ Third Part of Loverboy.

Chapter 7. ~ Ashley.

The days passed as my need to take a bath and brush my teeth increased. I wanted to sleep in a decent bed so the pain I had in my back would leave once and for all. I felt the desire to sleep normally again. but yet, here I was, in full and complete insomnia, drifting thorugh the darkness of dreams and the clarity of reality. 

Most of all, my lack of sleep started to affect me. Every minute that passed was another mintue in which I was sinking a little bit deeper on Earth. It was making me run out of hopes, and the only thing that it caused was the constant clattering of my own teeth and the nervous trembling of my hands. 

It was very difficult to keep living in reality. I had these weird episodes where suddenly lost consciousness and woke up covered in sweat, though the temperature outside was very low. In those moments when I woke up, I found myself feeling every little outer and inner stimuli. It was as if my emotions sharpened and my whole body was this machine designed to harm me emotionally.

But I must say, what really bothered me were these chills that ran down my back like a cold finger at odd and random moments. Then there was this feeling of pressure in my chest, like claustrophobia. And above all, I hated the nightmares that haunted the brief moments where I could actually sleep. 

The worst? Patrick was in those nightmares. And me too. 

So that day—I had already lost the sense of time—, when I woke up with a start after having another nightmare and I noticed Patrick standing in front of me staring at me, I almost wanted to die. Nothing worse than waking up and seeing that your nightmare is real. 

At this point, I had no strength left to speak. With each passing moment sitting there I felt myself getting weaker and weaker. 

—It bothers me when you do that. —Patrick began to say—. You are meant to be here to keep me company me and be awake at all time. Not to sleep forever. 

I did nothing. I was not going to spend what little strength I had left in him. 

With my eyes half closed, I ordered my body to resist a little more. I tried to guide my eyes towards him again. 

—You look so sick. —Patrick smiled. A wave of nausea, hatred and fear ran through my body. 

Sure that smile was a proud smile, proud to see me this way. He had created almost all of this. I felt the drops of whatever drug he was putting in my body dripping into the bag hanging from the tripod, infecting me slowly from the inside out, eventually weakening me. 

Each time was harder to breathe. Everything around me made me uncomfortable. Everything brought a new feeling to my body, and it was all overwhelming. My mind slowly got more tired, and it was more than a fact that my body had already surrendered. Dionne was right when she said that this was going to be slow. 

It became increasingly difficult to differentiate between reality and the subconscious. I saw shadows moving in the cabin, I noticed how the sunlight poured over the wooden walls, I heard how the dead leaves from the trees cracked under the subtle weight of air... 

The cold sweat that soaked me only made me feel sticky and uncomfortable. 

I slowly got deeper into a dream where Nathan's lips were pressed against my skin, healing the points where the needles had been buried, the places where the rope had damaged profoundly my skin; a dream in which he was wearing white clothes and his hair was all messed up, and he was looking at me with those piercing eyes that were the death of me. His arms wrapped around my waist, just as it should be, as he planted kisses on the curve of my neck, tickling the skin below my ear with his nose... And for a moment it was all so real.